Vol. xxviii.] 26 



two passages in particular may be quoted which are as out- 

 standingly true to-day as they were when they were written. 



The first occurs in the advertisement to the ' Natural 

 History' and is as follows : 



' He is also of opinion that i£ stationary men would 

 pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and 

 would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that 

 surround them, from such materials might be drawn the 

 most complete county-histories . . . . ' 



And the second forms part of the Vllth Letter to 

 Barrington ; 



' Men that undertake only one district are much more 

 likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp 

 at more than they can possibly be acquainted with ; every 

 kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer? 



The ' Natural History of Selborne ' has passed through 

 more than a hundred editions, and still continues to be 

 published. The best bibliographies on the book are those of 

 Professor Newton in * Notes and Queries/ 1877-8 (5th ser- 

 vols. vii. to ix.) and of Mr. Davies Sherborn (Sharpe's 

 edition, 1900, vol. ii. p. 349). 



(Cf. also a list of Bibliographies of the writings of Gilbert 

 White by Hugh Boyd Watt. f The Selborne Magazine/ 

 p. 198, No. 239, 1909?) 



.In conclusion a few words may be added as to Gilbert 

 White's observations and discoveries as a field naturalist. 

 He devoted most of his attention to Ornithology, but the 

 other branches of Zoology were not neglected by him, and 

 his study of botany has already been referred to. To 

 Gilbert White we owe the addition of the Harvest Mouse, 

 Mm minutus, to the list of British Mammals, and he was also 

 the first English observer to publish and describe the Noctule, 

 Pipistrellus noctula : but as Bell writes (vol. i. p. 33), he was 

 not sufficiently acquainted with the zoological literature of 

 the Continent to be aware that as early as 1759 Daubenton 

 had described it in the Memoirs of the Academy, with a 

 figure of its head, and that Buffon had subsequently, but 

 before White's discovery, given it a place in his great work, 



